1st – 7th of November 2021

Portbury. We sailed on Sunday night: picked up the pilot at the pilot boarding station and sailed in later in the night. I was sleeping when all this happened because I needed to wake up early early to open the hatches, so I missed the fun of entering the Royal Docks of Portbury: small locks but a large dock behind with quite a few big vessels alongside. Luckily the weather was very good and quite warm and sunny for the first of November! 

The discharging of the sugar beet pulp pellets went fast and smoothly. As a precaution, I did only open a few hatches by a few hatches. Indeed: although the sun was constantly above our head, not so far away the front was passing above Bristol and I did not want to take the risk of having wet and damaged cargo. They had rain for sure. When I looked at those dark clouds… it could only confirm that it was wise to keep an eye on the surroundings.

At the end of the day, the bobcat was in and the last cargo was coming out at 20h. It was fun, I usually like to make a small game with the crew to estimate either the number of grabs left in the hold or the time it will take us to complete the discharging. I started doing this when I was a trainee. I would challenge captain H. on this. He likes to be challenged like that. And I like to win. But he would change his mind in the middle and change his answer so that he could win. That was not how it should be played…. 😉 Now with the ABs and whoever is there in the hold at the time of the game, I give a start time and ask how long each and one of us think it will be finished and the one closest to the completion time ( usually when the bobcat is out) wins. I won already a couple of times, A. Our engineer won too. The ABs still need to work on their skills. Captain H. Is not allowed to play till further notice haha. No rule changing in the middle of the game and he knows that. I will probably let him play again. Next time he is in the hold with us. It was not the case this time so no worries… I am not an excluder….. all are welcome to play. 😉

We had a lot of cargo stuck behind our bulkheads. I knew that from the loading in Liepaja. I had prepared my afternoon watch the tarpaulin for on top of the bulkhead to avoid the problem, but during my sleep, I got woken up by sounds against the wall of my cabin and knew directly what was going on. When I came on my night watch at that time I saw the tarpaulins that were taken off « because of the wind ». I remember at that time it made me really upset because there were small lines that were on the tarpaulins for making it fast and avoid having them fall in the hold. And when you know how long it takes for the whole crew to move the two bulkheads and sweep the leftover cargo from behind; well you make sure the tarpaulins are in place. We would all agree that even though it is not nice at the moment, it avoids so much more work to wake up one or two crew members to fix a tarpaulin if we cannot do it alone…. But that was not how it happened.

After completion, we moved the bulkheads and swept the remaining cargo out. Because we were not sailing out before the next day, we postponed the cleaning of the hold to the next morning. We had a chance still to have a good night’s sleep. The cleaning of the hold would be done the next morning thoroughly. We were going to Bird port, close to Newport, only a couple of hours out sailing. We would be loading steel slabs so the hold also needed to be washed with fresh water because there would be a salinity test too during the hold inspection.

We sailed out of the locks of Portbury later in the afternoon on a beautiful sunny day for a change. We were not going into our next port for a few days. They still had a few vessels ahead of us in the planning. The bad weather from the previous week made a little bit of congestion in the harbours. I did not mind. It was also the way it was and we could not change it. This time the anchorage was very easy and smooth: almost no wind and nice weather so we focused on outdoor jobs. A bit of maintenance here and there and some painting on deck.

I am glad that happened. As we are going into the winter period, areas with a bit of open paint and cracks will get even worse during the winter. And when it is cold outside, it is not ideal for the paint to dry either. I mean these are normal maintenance things that every officer knows onboard right? The good preparation of the surface to be painted. If you quickly just paint on top then you are sure you can do it all over again in the spring.

So this is what we did for a few days at anchor: drills, painting, greasing, general maintenance… the usual. 

We heaved up anchor and entered the river to Newport in the late afternoon of the 5th. It was nice because as it was getting darker outside, we could see a lot of fireworks and bomb fires along the coast. It was Guy Fawkes day. I joked saying to the captain that they were making a part for us for finally entering the harbour after so many days!

There were a lot of tides and thus current at that time on the river and Birdport was a small harbour situated behind Newport. It was quite tricky because it only gave us a few minutes to make the turn and enter the small kind of lock where the loading would happen. And…. Surprise surprise, there was still a vessel loading at our berth! The problem was that if he did not make it in time to sail out then we had to cancel coming in and had to sail all the way back to the anchorage to wait for the next tide to sail in…. At the moment, I must admit I thought we were not so lucky with all our trips so far. But 20 minutes before our deadlines we were waiting drifting in a safe area on the river Usk, we hear on the radio that the vessel at our berth was ready and proceeding for departure. Great! We would make it on time.

It was a funny place, like a single lock with halfway doors that would close so that the tide did not take away all the water and always 6-7m remained at the berth. The inspectors came in the evening, directly upon arrival to inspect the salinity and cleanliness of the hold and to make the ultrasound test. It was all fine, the next morning we would be able to load directly the steel slabs.

The nice thing about this cargo is that it was not weather-dependent like the steel coils. These were just on the quayside outside. They just needed to be protected from salt water. This meant that I could easily open up all hatches in the morning and let them load patting attention to the trim while deballasting. Each slab was approximately 20t and we were going to make 4 piles of 7 slabs per high, 5 high; which meant 140 slabs to load. It was – normally- going to be pretty fast loading. 

Except that….. wait for it ;-)…. The next morning, I was ready with all the hatches open but by the time the stevedore came and the shore workers…. Well the tide was higher and they couldn’t load the timber in the ship with their crane….. haha They did not want to change the hook either so they had to wait for the tide to lower to start working…. 3 hours later…. Really?! I thought this was ridiculous. They had 1. Started on time and 2. Changed the hook, they could have started slowly. But well in the end we managed and way on time so it was the same for us.

In the evening at high tide, we sailed out with the pilot on board and proceeded towards the English Channel for a couple of Days. We were headed to our next port of call in Gent, Belgium, to discharge the slabs. We had 3 days sailing ahead of us. Luckily the weather had changed and we had nice and smooth sailing.

Let’s see next week what Gent would bring us this time! New adventures to be followed! Have a nice Sunday at sea my friends!

Xxx

Sopietje

18th – 24th of October 2021

The situation: cargo hold loaded with Fertilizer from Yara in Uusikaupunki and underway to Klaipeda, Lithuania. The very same port I joined almost one month ago. It is funny to be back in the same place a few times in a row. It sometimes feels like we « own » the place. Like we know what the city looks like, and how the cool places look like too. It is probably because for once I joined a day earlier so I had time to walk around in the city and get the vibe out there. And the first weekend I was onboard the harbour was closed due to bad weather so we « had to » stay in and enjoyed a great Saturday night out clubbing and dancing. Lucky me. It usually doesn’t happen like that. You join the vessel and go go go!

So yes. We owned the place. Or the harbour. Or probably only our thoughts on the city, but not much more in the end.

Leaving Uusikaupunki I was hoping we would be in town and we could celebrate my birthday but that didn’t happen of course. In the Bothnia Sea, the first 6 hours after departure, the wind was still quite strong and even though the ship had good stability, it did not feel so comfortable on the bridge: a bit of pitching here and there. Luckily, as soon as we headed south the waves and wind angles were slightly better. 

I had prepared your cookie and reminded him that it was soon my birthday. We had just had a crew change and our previous cook A. Would easily bake cakes. I think he likes it: carrot cake, tiramisu, or other cakes he fancied. With cook M. It is not the same. He is more of a « chef » and likes to cut out deco for the nice presentation of the salads and dishes. He is not such a baking person. But it didn’t matter to me. 2 years ago, he was our cookie when I was first trainee on board and I knew he could bake a birthday cake because I had already had one from him! This year I was just hoping I would not get grated cheese on it as decoration. I think it is an Indonesian thing. It tastes…. Different. 

Funny fact. My brother lives in Indonesia too and as I was having him on the phone for my birthday he asked me how my birthday cake was and if I had cheese on it too. I laughed. I thought it was just the imagination of our cookies for innovative cake decoration, but it seems to be a « thing » there too! 

Second fun fact: it is because of this cook that I got my nickname onboard « Sopie »; without the « H ». Because he spelt my name wrong on the cake and since captain H. Has been calling me Sopie or sopietje and the others have followed. I do understand that the « F » sound is not so common in their language; I just find it funny, and I do not mind at all. On the opposite!

Well, this time, I anticipated, I asked him if he could bake a cake for me and he said « but I do not have « room butter »! » ; to which I replied but you are a cookie you know how to bake a cake without butter right? Just replace it with oil!. I think I saw his face turning blank as he did not seem to understand that it was also possible to bake a bake without butter…. I for sure did not wish to have a remade cake: powder in which you just have to add water or milk, mix and put in the over. So I asked him if he knew how to bake a carrot cake… « carrots? In a cake? But miss Sopie! »…. Ok. History repeats. I will teach this cookie too how to bake my favourite carrot cake… even better than the one from Starbucks! Yes. true. So I printed a recipe and although he wanted me to help him; when I came to the galley to do so, he had already mixed it all and it was in the oven. Perfect! 🙂

Anyways. Third fun fact: I do not know why but Indonesian cooks never like to keep the surprise of how the birthday cake looks. They always bring you to the galley and open the fridge to show you. And I always like to keep it as a surprise. They spent time making it and decorating it so it is always nice that it is a surprise, don’t you think? So this time as he was showing me the cake and I was thinking « oh well, it doesn’t matter, it is still a surprise for me » I saw the cake and it was written « happy 40th » … 40???!! Like whaaaat? I am not 40 yet! He got so confused! And said the captain said it was 40… I said not 37! He quickly changed it for me. But It was funny to see the captain making a prank on me ( yes this is how it goes on ships like this! Always joking around. No harm) and discovering that I knew about it… haha

Anyways. Cookie’s first carrot cake was delicious.

So In Klaipeda, the discharging of the fertilizer went quite fast and we had our next destination already: Liepaja to Portbury. Liepaja was only 70 nautical miles away so we had to be quick to clean the hold and have it as ready as possible. The good thing about fertilizer is that it is an easy cargo to clean, not like grain or pellets that tend to absorb all the water. Fertilizer dissolves very easily.

The only thing is that the winds were increasing in the baltic and they were saying that harbours would maybe close. But we were lucky; our agent said he could find a waiting berth for us in Liepaja….. which… did not happen of course! We left Klaipeda very fast and 6 hours later at the pilot boarding station in front of Liepaja; the harbour closed and we could not enter anymore. The weather forecasted was SW wind force 8-9 Beaufort. Impossible to anchor in front of the harbour and wait. Impossible to sail back to Klaipeda: it was not possible to stay there before we left, so also not after we left. So we sailed in ballast to Sweden to drop anchor and shelter behind Gotland. These were probably my worst 12 hours ever onboard Ruyter. It was horrible how we were literally in a washing machine. The Baltic can have very short and steep waves when the wind increases drastically like that. I think the whole crew suffered too.

When we arrived at anchor we were all so relieved the ship was not moving as much, and that the waves were way less. I am not so sure anyone was happy about the thought of sailing the 12 hours back to the harbour a couple of days later…. Just the thought of it made me tired and started to re-seafasten everything I would touch. At anchor, sheltered behind the island, we faced over 40 knots of wind! I am really glad we were not in the middle where over 8-9 Beaufort were expected and the waves were still present.

We stayed like this at anchor doing inside jobs till we heard the harbour would open again. We heaved up and started making way again as we had 12 hours ahead of us. The winds were still very strong but they had veered a little making it slightly more favourable for us. But of course, as if this whole voyage was not the luckiest, when we arrived in front of Liepaja the harbour was still closed and remained closed for another 24 hours. We waited drifting back in forth waiting for our turn to get the pilot on board and enter the port. What a trip! 4 days to do 70 nm! Crazy. Anyways. We arrived there safely and ready to load sugar beet pulp pellet.

I had already been there. SBPP is for animal food: horses, cows… I tasted it, it was very hard. But when it is wet is because all smoshie. The quayside in Liepaja is not the nicest: there is a lot of cargo and mud and is a bit stinky there too. Every time we go and check the drafts we have to clean our boots on deck otherwise we bring dirt everywhere on the ship. There was still a bit of wind and quite a few showers. So it was not an easy loading. Two cranes but less than 150t per hour… for the two cranes together! I thought we would never end this. It seemed like it took ages. And it did. Between the rain showers, the brakes, the truck drivers break, and the crew changes…. It took us over 2 days to load the ship…. Again on departure, there was too much wind and the harbour was closed so we were delayed 6 hours again.

Honestly, I just think that they planned it for the pilot to come early in the morning and not in the middle of the night… just to get a normal night’s sleep. I do not know. But yes. Finally, we left the place with of course headwinds, but not as strong so we made our way to England. We had a nice long trip: 6 days before we would reach Portbury, via Kiel Channel. And we also had in the locks in Kiel the captain change. B. Was going home and captain H. Coming back from a well-deserved 2-month leave.

I was very much looking forward to having him back on board because work-wise, I would get a direct response on what we could or couldn’t do with the ship. He is the manager so all the shipping or improvements or worklists are approved by him, and social wise because he is fun and brings energy to the ship and he would of course bring Duschi his dog…. So that was a good thing to be looking forward to.

For now, the cargo loading was completed in the middle of the night Sunday and Monday early morning we departed for sea.

What a week! Not much happened but it was physically straining…. Hopefully, a full week of sailing and routine would able us to catch up on some rest here and there!

See you next week for new adventures! 

Xxx Sophie